


Tell Them Of All The Lives We've Lived

by CancerianWastelandCat



Series: Drabbles [5]
Category: the GazettE
Genre: Grief, Heavy Angst, Loss, M/M, tw: death, tw: depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-07 04:04:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12832908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CancerianWastelandCat/pseuds/CancerianWastelandCat
Summary: Kouyou has lost his battle, Yuu has to let go and breaks his own heart in the process.





	Tell Them Of All The Lives We've Lived

**Author's Note:**

> My musical companions for this piece were [“von” from the Zankyou No Terror OST](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxnqSTzq6-w&index=9), [The Spinning Song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxx4z64GH38), [“My Love” by Sia](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8c81fXTZ-74) and especially [“Breathe” by Greg Maroney](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eqyir5JGpA).

 

It had been months at first.

_5 months, he has 5 months._

Yuu had allowed himself to wish, even hope, like a fool. Because it had broken apart, all shattered when Kouyou’s condition worsened over night.

It wasn’t months anymore, not weeks or days. It was hours.

Yuu had lost himself and his shine, his will. In the constant fear of getting a call in the middle of the night, in the prayers he’d always known were useless and in the terror of having to say goodbye. A sinister nightmare that had become reality. It was as real as the chair he was sitting on, as real as the clinical scent in this hospital and just as real as the heart in his chest that was going to keep beating while Kouyou’s stopped.

_Minutes._

“Yuu?”

He lifted his head ponderously, as if he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. Takanori had stepped out of the hospital room Yuu had left half an hour ago. He hadn’t been able to endure the sight of Kouyou’s dying frame any longer. Though he knew he couldn’t escape. Kouyou needed him after all, for however long they had left.  
Takanori’s eyes were just as colorless as his and the second Yuu met them, he knew it was over. Now.

“Yuu, it’s time.”

It felt like his body petrified to ice, to a lifeless shell that he couldn’t break through while he was forced to go through all of this.

“I can’t, Taka,” he breathed against the palms that he had buried his face in, “I can’t go in there.”

Because how was he supposed to survive this? How was he supposed to let go?

_He couldn’t._

“Yuu, he needs you,” Takanori spoke softly and stepped up to his friend, slowly and carefully as if he was afraid Yuu was going to scream or fall or break if anyone came too close too quickly.

“He won’t be able to let go if you’re not there with him. I’ll be right beside you. Okay?”

The raven-haired man before him let out a sigh before he dropped his hands. Takanori bit back a gasp at how empty Yuu looked. It broke his heart.

Yuu didn’t answer, though he did heave himself up on his feet. He was swaying like a drunk man who had to get himself home but Takanori was more than certain the only thing messing with Yuu’s mind at this moment was fear. Fear of the undeniable fact that soon his ‘home’ wouldn’t be the same anymore.

  
They exchanged glimpses for a couple of seconds as Takanori held his friend’s arm and gave it a reassuring squeeze. Reassuring and yet it was as weak as it was obvious that nobody would be able to spare Yuu the dread of what was to come.

An all-shaking tremor shot through Yuu’s body when he stepped into the hospital room, the sight of Kouyou nothing but a shadow of his former self wrenching at the torn edges of his heart.

"Yuu…" he breathed out, a barely audible cry for comfort, and Yuu was ready to break into tears. The two nurses that stood beside the bed discussing and twisting the controls of the life support system hushed their voices entirely and made their way outside with a respectful bow that wasn’t only directed at Yuu but Kouyou as well. They knew of course; and something in his throat began clotting up.

“Hey,” he croaked and almost stumbled over, seating himself on the only chair that stood beside the bed. As he had made a habit of during the past months, his hands came up to grasp Kouyou’s in a loving manner.

Takanori watched as Yuu trailed his fingers across the back of Kouyou’s hand, up over his temple and his cheek, with fingers that shook in a sense of finality, in the knowledge that this was going to be the last time.

The corners of Kouyou’s lips curled into a smile hardly noticeable and he blinked, turning his head lightly as much as he could to return Yuu’s affectionate gesture.

“I’m glad you’re … here to say goodbye.”

Yuu grimaced painfully and his lips began to tremble.

“Don’t say that,” he pleaded softly and lowered his head in a futile attempt to conceal the tears that had begun to fall.

Takanori wished for nothing more but the ability to catch them, to protect Yuu from what he had to go through but he knew he couldn’t. The way Kouyou slowly glanced up at him said enough. It was a plea, words of gratitude and an apology all at once. Takanori merely shook his head before he left the room with soft steps.

Yuu heard the soft click of the closing door in his back but he didn’t act on it. If anything, it only caused his heart to convulse even more, knowing their friend had, despite his promise to stay, left them to the intimacy of their last few minutes. They were quiet, of unbearable weight and full of silent cries that echoed in the void of their farewell.

“Yuu.”

Kouyou swallowed, feeling his chest heave with the effort it took to utter his lover’s name. But he didn’t mind it. He had gone through so much with this beautiful man in front of him that a bit of chest pain wasn’t going to bother him for now, he decided.

Yuu lifted his head in dread when the hand in his grip slowly withdrew. He blinked the veil in front of his eyes away before he directed them upwards. He didn’t want to look at Kouyou. He didn’t want to accept that this was the last time he saw him. He didn’t want to accept that this was what he was forever going to remember him like, so fragile and pale, weak and so, _so_ tired.

“C-Can you- “ Kouyou’s chest rose tardily, “promise me … something?”

Licking his lips, Yuu sniffed and wiped at his cheeks. He sat straight and nodded.

“Anything.”

“T … Tell them.”

Kouyou’s eyes wandered around, around the room and seeing nothing, as if unsure about his request. When their eyes locked, Yuu’s tongue glided across his lips once more. They felt terribly dry but he managed to nod his head again. He couldn’t deny Kouyou anything, most definitely not something that was going to happen anyway.

“Of course,” he muttered and felt another wave of tears starting to suffocate him, “Taka will … g-get …,” he choked, “w-work on an … official statement o-or something, I- “

_He couldn’t._

How could he let go?

Over the sound of his sobs booming like thunder in his ears, Yuu didn’t hear the soft objection that came from Kouyou. Only when a haggard hand crawled its way into his field of vision did he actually look up to find Kouyou shaking his head, a slow-motion movement.  
  
“N-No,” he stammered and for the first time in a long while, Yuu saw something like life in his eyes. Something that was sparkling, dull but _there_ , buried so deeply behind the walls of his illness that Kouyou only managed to have it peek across the edge. Never would it ever climb across it again. And Kouyou knew. He knew, and he tried to speak with as much determination as he could muster.

 Yuu _had_ to understand.

_“Tell them.”_

Yuu swallowed, glancing at his lover for a few seconds of confusion before realization hit him, that them were their fans but an official statement wasn’t what Kouyou wanted him to do. Kouyou had an entirely different task for him.

_“About … us.”_

And Yuu knew instantly what it would carry to fulfil Kouyou’s wish. Anxiety clamped at his insides and he found himself hesitating. He didn’t know if he could do that. He didn’t know if he could pour out his heart to the thousands of people he knew looked up to him. He didn’t know if he was strong enough to keep himself from breaking down in front of them.

“I … don’t know if I can do that, Kou,” he began slowly and almost anticipated for Kouyou’s weak features to fall in disappointment but that wasn’t the case. Kouyou sensed his fears and merely gazed at him with such tenderness that Yuu felt like it was ripping his heart to shreds. He didn’t deserve this, none of this.

_Why him?_

“They …”

Kouyou gulped and took a violent lungful of air. He looked down, to where their hands had found each other again and Yuu thought he saw tears glistening in his lacklustre, amber eyes.

“They love you,” he breathed out eventually and Yuu’s chest tightened. He knew they did.

“Yuu, they love you _so much_. They … will understand.”

His teeth dug hard into his bottom lip, as hard as needed to prevent the tears from falling, so hard it almost drew blood. And yet, Kouyou’s fingertips atop his cheekbone, so fragile and feather-light, stung harder than any bite ever could and reminded him that he was fighting a losing battle. It reminded him that they both did.

“I can’t let you leave, Kouyou,” he muttered against the palm he had turned his face to, hiding, cowering before death.

“I can’t let you go. I _can’t._ ”

Kouyou’s only response was silence and for just a second, a horrible, ice-cold second, Yuu’s heart stopped in terror of having lost him. But the monotonous, repetitive sound of the life support system was still there. Slower, but there, like a constant reminder of the few meters he still had to walk.

“Yo-You have to.”

No matter how often he took a breath, Yuu felt like it was never going to be enough, never going to compensate for, let alone fill the hole he felt behind his rips.  
Pressing his lips against the bony palm of Kouyou’s hand, he clenched his eyes shut briefly before looking up at him again. And as he gazed into his eyes, Yuu saw it. He saw what he had never wanted to see but should have expected.  
  
He saw the moment he had first laid eyes upon Kouyou in Kanagawa, saw their first kiss in the parking lot of Tokyo Dome. He saw Takanori in anger over the rumours and Kouyou crying over how the secrecy was tearing him apart. He saw Kouyou in his most vulnerable state, in his arms the night they had shared a bed for the first time. He saw it all, and knew he was going to lose it, inevitably. 

  
_Beep.    Beep.    Beep._

_  
_ “Y-Yuu?”

_God, he sounded so weak._

“Hm?”

Kouyou exhaled a ragged breath, attempting to tighten his hold on Yuu’s hand but it didn’t do much. Yuu instead laced their fingers and gave him a smile riddled with despair.  
  
“P … Pro- ” Kouyou was fumbling for the word, a small crease appearing between his soft-edged eyebrows when he failed to find it, “P-Promise me. That you…”

“I will,” Yuu uttered the words before he could even think, quickly and dreadfully scared he was running out of time, “I will tell them. I will tell them everything.”

The breath he took was trembling. “I promise.”

And Kouyou smiled, like Yuu had just made him the happiest person on earth. He smiled like he had won his war, like he had found peace in something so miniscule yet so vast in meaning like those two words.

Tranquillity fell across the room and numbness took over.

Yuu blinked but he didn’t see much other than the light-blue blanket nestled around Kouyou’s frame and for every thing he didn’t see, he listened. He listened to Kouyou’s decelerating heartbeat, seconds and minutes until it resembled nothing but the very last drops dripping off rippled leaves during the calm moments after an all-obliterating thunder storm. 

  
_Beep.      Beep._

  
He started panting. It felt like an enormous heat was seeping through his veins, reaching the remotest corner of his body, doughy and hot like lava and sending him straight into panic as he sucked in Kouyou’s last breaths.

  
_Beep.                                                Beep._

 

Yuu had long lost control over his tears and they were quivering like tiny tsunami waves as they rolled down his cheeks, as were his hands and his lips.

_“I love you, Aoi.”_

His head snapped up and he stared at Kouyou, so stoically as if he was inwardly begging for his gaze alone to stop whatever hell he was trapped in, begging for it to _wake him up, **please.**_

But Kouyou’s eyes were closed and the ever-so-slight tug at his lips was the only indicator that Yuu hadn’t only imagined the words that still rung in his ears.

Yuu stared and stared, squeezing Kouyou’s hand in his so hard it would’ve probably hurt hadn’t the blond already been way too far gone to feel it.

“I love you, too,” he sobbed through his tears and sniffed, watching as Kouyou’s chest fell but never rose.

  
_Beep._

  
“K-Kou?"

_Don’t leave me!_

He had heard it countless times, he had seen the documentaries and the shows running on TV almost every night and recalled the slight compassion he’d felt for the characters around the operation table.

Yet and even though he had always, right from the beginning, known he was going to have to ready himself for _this moment_ , he wasn’t prepared. No one was ever prepared.

The ECG hit flatline and Yuu burst.  
  


On the other side of the door, Takanori flinched in shock once a scream so profoundly anguished it gave him chills echoed through the hallway. He saw the two nurses behind the reception desk look at each other but clenched his eyes shut as he listened to how Yuu’s bawl faded away into soft cries.

Takanori took a minute to hide himself in the darkness behind his eyelids but knew he couldn’t leave Yuu alone any longer. Arising to his feet, he glanced briefly at the ladies in white before he entered the hospital room.

The sight before him was a tragedy, the continuous beeping coming from the life support system a ridiculing, cruel background music. Takanori felt his heart sink in sympathy as he found his friend crying into the lowers arms he had perched on the bed and his feet carried him without thinking.

Yuu reacted instantly. When Takanori’s fingers brushed over his drab hair the raven broke away only to bury his face against Takanori’s stomach.

_You have to take care of him, Taka._

His eyes wandered to Kouyou’s sleeping form and they welled up with another incoming flood. Takanori held Yuu and said nothing, allowed fingers to claw at his shirt and tears to ooze through the fabric, wordlessly.

_Promise me, Taka. It will be hard and he won’t make it without you._

Takanori brushed his hand over Yuu’s hair once more, listening to his sobs which he, for whatever reason, found faintly reminiscent of the determination he had seen in Kouyou’s eyes three weeks ago. He wasn’t going to disappoint him or going to break his last promise to his friend. Not when Yuu was desperately falling apart in his arms in this very moment, clinging to him like you would to an anchor in the stifling sea.

As he gazed down, Takanori sparsely recognized the sorrow beginning to carve its lines deeply into Yuu’s delicate skin and he finally allowed his own tears to fall. No, he wasn’t going to let Yuu go, for however long it took until his heart was whole again.

_You have my word._


End file.
